Twitter suspends over 50 accounts linked to white nationalist groups
“The accounts in question were suspended for violating our policies in relation to violent extremism,” Twitter said in a statement, according to NBC News.
By JERUSALEM POST STAFFTwitter CEO Jack Dorsey(photo credit: REUTERS/ANUSHREE FADNAVIS)
Twitter suspended over 50 accounts linked to white nationalist groups and extremist ideology a source told NBC News on Friday.“The accounts in question were suspended for violating our policies in relation to violent extremism,” Twitter said in a statement, according to NBC News.Twitter and YouTube were both criticized in a report released by the Global Project Against Hate and Antisemitism on Tuesday, claiming that Twitter is allowing white supremacist groups to spread their message, gain footing and recruit members via the platform.It names specifically 67 Twitter accounts linked to the Identarian movement, also referred to as Generation Identity, which is a far-right philosophy originating in France influenced by Nazi ideology that asserts the idea immigrants are taking over territories that belong to those of white European descent. The accounts themselves have around 140,000 followers spread between them.While Twitter has taken steps to remove misinformation and hate speech, the report claims that its "not so for white supremacist groups. Enforcement of bans on these groups and their acolytes is much more haphazard, despite their proliferation of propaganda such as the Great Replacement, which similarly inspires terrorism and argues that white people are being genocided in their home countries."Groups that push this idea, in particular Generation Identity (GI), are rampant on Twitter and YouTube even though such propaganda has inspired six mass attacks since October 2018," it added.The leader of the Identitarian Movement in Austria Martin Sellner, also had his account suspended.“It is another act of censorship of freedom of speech,” Sellner told NBC in a phone interview. “We are the only group really talking about mass immigration and population replacement. The mainstream has no answers to our question: Why should we accept becoming a minority in our own countries?”
